


Finifugal

by notreserenade



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Light Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 11:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18777643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notreserenade/pseuds/notreserenade
Summary: Finifugal - to hate endings; of someone who yearns for the continuation of a moment/relationship/journey.A collection of short-chaptered stories based on the word, "finifugal".





	1. Bokuto — Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Autumn child Bokuto Koutaro learns to love spring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive, and got this done! Tell me about what you think about the first chapter! I'd love to hear your opinions! :)
> 
> Tags: slow burn, friends to lovers.  
> Wordcount: 6529 words

  

Bokuto Koutaro loves the winter.

  
Despite being an autumn child, he’s always loved the way frost would build on top of his spiky hair during early mornings after a hot shower. And all the snowball fights that he’d have with his friends in a random parking lot near school grounds.    

So. Many. Snowball. Fights.  
  


Winter welcomes the end to a year, which, to many, instills both relief and excitement towards what the future holds. It’s a way for people to turn over a new leaf—to let go of everything that’s happened in the previous year in order to look forward to whatever was going to happen in the future. But these reasons, however, weren’t reasons for Bokuto’s love for winter. They were all very meaningful, compelling reasons for a person’s self-growth and a decent philosophical take on the passing of time, yes, but winter to Bokuto Koutaro had much simpler reasons for it to have become his favorite season. Winter to Bokuto simply meant more happy people, merrier streets, and a lot of pretty Christmas lights that would light up people's homes. Compared to autumn, which in his opinion had more of a bittersweet taste as it consisted more of grumpy coffee-drinkers and miserable leaves on the ground, winter simply contained more happy events.

A simpleton he was, but at least he was a happy one.

Much like his excitement for everything fun, Bokuto’s enthusiastic excitement for winter was, to put it simply, the one and only extravaganza that he would actually (and very thoroughly) plan for. Everything from counting down the days to Christmas to forcing his friends to make igloos with him, it’s as if Bokuto kept an agenda that was prioritized over everything else in his life (and yes, even volleyball). But what could one say? It was all in preparation to celebrate the happiest time of the year, and thus it was all valid.  All which had been and was going to continue to be such pivotal moments of making winter to ultimately become the, as Bokuto would say it, most awesome fucking season ever. 

  
But just like every other first-year college student, Bokuto had underestimated the amount of school work that his university had made him do—so much so that he shocked everyone with the news of not being able to go through everything on his winter agenda. He had so many things planned on his agenda for this year’s winter, too; Christmas hiking, treasure hunts in the snow, gingerbread bake-offs…

One thing that he didn’t have on his agenda as the winter of his first year of college bloomed into spring, however,  was meeting you.

Your existence came into Bokuto’s life like raging turbulence—the tranquillity that you bore was so captivating that even someone as boisterous and full of energy as Bokuto Koutarou was in awe of the way you presented yourself. Three weeks was, admittedly, not a very long period of time. It’s the type of timespan that would easily let small, insignificant changes slip from the consciousness of people; a period of time that was a bit awkward since things usually simply just happened—only to gradually unfold during a moment of realizing all the things that had slipped through during your inattentiveness a week later. A month it then becomes, and suddenly you’re stuck with all these new habits that were formed during the past month.

So was three weeks enough time to get to know a person?  Well—if it wasn’t, then Bokuto hasn’t been counting, because he was already convinced from the very first three weeks of knowing you that it was all he needed to consider you a friend.

For you to join the volleyball team as the new manager was thrilling for everyone on the team, considering how they’d been without one ever since the semester started. Most of the boys on the team had expected, judging from your seemingly elegant demeanor when you weren’t speaking, that you were going to be an absolute joy and refreshing presence that would balance out the raging testosterone of the volleyball team. But that all changed, of course, when you’d start yelling at the boys to stop fucking pull their balls from their volleyball shorts during practice matches, or when you’d try to aim for their faces with a volleyball when they’d be doing flying dumps.

  
Four months into knowing you, and suddenly you reached a pivotal travesty that made Bokuto fall into a seemingly pit-less hole of self-deprivation and misery; Bokuto’s girlfriend had broken up him. Feeling as if he had no options but to mentally give up on everything, Bokuto was often found in between practice matches at their college gym with dejection that carried through the room heavily.  You, who’d become the one person (aside from Akaashi) to know what to do with a Bokuto in a slump like this, walked towards a frightenedly quiet Bokuto, who sat on the bench for a break from volleyball.

More often than not, comforting a Bokuto who was in this kind of state was nearly a mission impossible. The more you’d try improving his mood, the worse his mood would often get. As Akaashi had advised you quite often, it was better to just let him be, or try to distract him.  

But it seemed like this break up was affecting him quite a lot, as his slump had been lasting for nearly a full week.  Although a week was often not nearly enough time to get over a girlfriend who’d just dumped you for the next best pretty boy, it was quite a long period of time to find Bokuto Koutaro in such a foul mood. It was particularly bad for the volleyball team, considering how his mood pretty much affected every single action that he made. Being the manager of the volleyball team, you’ve been contemplating how you could possibly help out both your incredulous friend but also the team, which, albeit being a very decent team with very strong players, was not nearly as strong without their bright and shiny wing spiker.

  
Taking gentle steps towards the dejected Bokuto, you decide that distracting him would only make it all worse.  

“Hey.” You say with a smile as you sit down beside him.  It didn’t happen very often for you to actually get to greet him with a hello instead of your foot in his groin, and to be quite honest, you probably would've preferred to deal with the latter result if you could so choose. But this wasn’t about you.  It was about Bokuto, and his poor, poor feelings having had become hurt by a girl who he thought was going to be his girlfriend forever.

Bokuto peeks at your face through his fingers, as if trying to hide his face from you. Four months wasn’t a very long time, but enough time to recognize friendship.  Finding that the soft eyes that you were giving him was comforting enough to let his heart go a little, his ambiguous expression that he’d been trying to pull off for the past week  suddenly  breaks, leaving you to come face to face with a wailing Bokuto, who was now sniffling away like a little baby.  He borrows your shoulder, and although his arms around your waist makes you momentarily freeze, you decide to swallow the swelling in your chest and bring your palm to gently pat the big baby’s back.  
  
“There, there.” You say, your touch soft and gentle enough to make him cry even harder.  His words are slurred, and when he feels your palm gently giving his silver-coloured hair small, gentle strokes, he realizes that he’s met an angel.  

“I love her, you know?”  Bokuto says while wailing and hiccupping in between his words, and you pat his head, your fingers brushing through his gelled spikes. His words were etching your lungs, but you ignore it because emotions were stupid, and so was the twitch you felt in your chest.

“I know.”  You whisper instead, giving him all the time that he needed in order to bring back even a fraction of the sunshine boy that once was.   
  
Your lectures were starting in five minutes, but this, you decide, was more important.

  
“I know."

\---

Bokuto and his girlfriend got back together the day after his dramatic crying in the gym. His high school sweetheart it was, apparently, and he loved her very much. You didn’t mean to feel as bitter as you did, but having had taken a bit of pride to have contributed to a version of Bokuto whose mood had slightly improved after his dramatic waterworks the day before, you couldn’t help but to feel like you’d been slapped in the face when you’d met him the day after, whose smile reached to his ears.

_Fucking doofus,_ you thought to yourself as you watched the black and white-haired boy skip his way to his lecture and wave at the sight of you like a kindergartener on his first day to school.

You were glad that it somehow worked out between him and his girlfriend. _Really_ —you probably wouldn’t be able to handle constantly worrying over the boy.

(Although to be fair, that’s probably what you constantly did anyway.)

   
But the slight tinge in your chest that you felt as you watched Bokuto sending ridiculous amounts of hearts through text to his girlfriend. The way you felt your gaze lingered just a _little_ too long when he was talking to you. You had a hunch of what these symptoms might be— _symptoms,_ because they were symptoms to the incurable disease of becoming infatuated by the boisterous boy that was Bokuto Koutaro. But just because you recognize them doesn’t mean that you need to acknowledge them. After all, feelings were, quite frankly, fucking stupid, and as you close the ridiculously large textbook that your professor had made you buy for the two-month course on introductory mechanics, you decide that your heart shall close with it.

The idiot was happy, and that was all that mattered, after all.

\---  
 

Bokuto, who loved a challenge when it came to almost everything in his life, did not love a challenge when it came to love. It’s comfortable, he thinks, to be with someone who he’s known for so long. She was the light when things got dark, and she knew all his favourite fast-food orders like the back of her hand. He was perfectly happy to be in this relationship again, and couldn’t be more over the moon about it.

They had their share of arguments when it came to things that they individually enjoyed, sure, but Bokuto didn’t see their different interests as a problem that was invasive enough to be an _actual_ problem. It was all just petty things—things that, to him, were just small stuff. Things that weren’t worth sweating over.

So why did they become such a big deal, to the point where she was willing to break up with him?

   
He asks Akaashi about it, because he asks Akaashi about everything.

   
“It’s weird,” Bokuto sighs as he puts the volleyball that he was holding to his head, “how I somehow always end up arguing with my girlfriend whenever we meet.”

His sudden statement catches Akaashi off guard. Although he was used to Bokuto coming to him for advice, it wasn’t often that he’d come to him to speak about problems that he had with his girlfriend.

“Is that so, Bokuto-san?” Akaashi comments carefully, his eyes set on the expression on Bokuto’s face. He didn’t seem particularly disgruntled, or completely over-the-moon, which Akaashi had expected him to be now that he’d gotten back with his girlfriend. If anything, he should be whining about ending practice early for him to see her as quickly as he could.

And yet here he was, staying behind practice while swinging a volleyball back in forth in his palms as if trying to kill as much time as possible.  
  
Bokuto throws the volleyball over to Akaashi, who swiftly catches it and throws it back. Bokuto catches it with ease, but what he doesn’t catch, though, is the knowing look that Akaashi gives him when he starts to laugh while proceeding to tell him about that one time you walked into a pole and cursed in front of the professor.

“I was telling my girlfriend about this, and she got angry! Can you believe it, Akaashi?! I mean, it’s a funny story, right?” Bokuto whines.

   
Akaashi sighs.

   
“She probably thought that you were starting to get a bit too chummy with our manager.” The two boys hear a voice say from behind, making them turn their head around simultaneously. Konoha, who was holding a mop that you’d just put in his hand with a nagging finger, comes waltzing into their conversation with ease—much like the way he approached everything in life.

With wide eyes, Bokuto gives the dirty blonde a glare. “That’s outrageous! Why would she think that?!”

"You always laugh at her jokes when no one does,” Akaashi states flatly, which Konoha chuckles at.

“You guys just don’t have humor.” Bokuto frowns.

“Tell me, Bokuto-san, who’s the first person you go to when you want to do something fun?” Akaashi questions.

“Well, our manager of course! She doesn’t get angry like my girlfriend does.”

   
Konoha raises an eyebrow. “You go to her first? That’s a bit weird.”

Scratching his head frustratedly, Bokuto raises his palms in his own defense. It was true that everything that he wanted to do, he wanted to do with you, but this, he’s decided, was probably because you were such a good friend.

He convinces himself that it’s because you’re like a brother. A friend that he always had fun with.

_A brother from another mother._

   
“That’s not true. I go to you guys about fun things, too!” Bokuto protests, which makes the boys in front of them roll their eyes. You were probably the only one who found his little animal-sightseeing adventures to be more fun than to sleep in on a Saturday morning. And only god knows how you were able to still be alive from all the taste-testing of Bokuto’s new baking inventions that he’d prepare for the team every Friday evening in order to, as he himself had put it, “show gratitude and pride as the team captain”.

  
“Would you be angry if I asked her out, then?” Konoha suddenly blurts out, which catches Akaashi’s immediate attention.

 But Bokuto doesn’t think, like always, and uses his trunk of a brain to respond.

   
“Look, boy, that’s not possible,” he says in a mockingly low voice as if trying to sound like his professor from economics as he waves his palm strongly in denial.

  
(And you don’t miss it. You’ve overheard his conversation for a while now, being that you were in the storeroom counting everyone’s neon team vests as your last task in hand before going home.

You’re the manager of the team, after all.

That’s how the two of you met.)  
  
  
“She knows too much of my secrets, dude.” Bokuto adds when Konoha gives him an unsure frown, “She’s like a bro, a bro!” 

Konoha laughs, and Akaashi lets a sigh escape his lips.

(He’s found himself sighing quite a lot around Bokuto lately.)  
 

“Wow, really? That’s great.”

  
Bokuto’s not surprised that someone on the team had taken an interest in you. Although he, for some reason, doesn’t encourage it, he definitely appreciated that someone else was seeing as much charm in you as he did, _despite_ the majority of the boys being rather intimidated by your boyish nature.

  
(While you silently witness the boys' conversation transpire, you decide to quietly walk around the boys to avoid being noticed. When you’re standing beside the coach, Bokuto misses the hurt glance that you throw at him.  
  
But Bokuto didn’t notice very much when it came to his surroundings, and so you didn't expect him to.)

 

\---

 

  
Bokuto, who's a bit of a celebration enthusiast, became outrageously shocked over the fact that you had the audacity to tell him about your birthday only a day before the day of.

Turning twenty-one only happens once in a lifetime, he'd nagged at you, and demanded it to be celebrated with a night out. You’d been reluctant at first, as you weren’t one that liked to make much of a deal out of anything (which sharply contrasted the way Bokuto handled his own life circumstances). But knowing that there probably wasn't going to be any way around it, you digress. 

  
“Come _on,_ ” he’d whined as he sat on the corner of your bed with his elbows resting on his knees and palms cupped at his cheeks, “you’re turning _twenty-one!”_

“Yeah, and I’m turning twenty-two next year.” You shoot back sarcastically, which he rolls his eyes at.  
  
“Whatever, I don’t care what you say. I’m still mad at you for not having had told me about your birthday sooner.” Bokuto mutters as he fiddles with the lamp on your bed stand. “I’m going to force you to have cake and beer with me tonight.” He obnoxiously yells, which you can’t help but laugh at.

You didn’t mean to hide your birthday from him or anything. Since you never really celebrated your birthday too much, you just didn’t think that it would be that big of a deal. But of _course_ it would be. With Bokuto Koutaro being your friend? Every single big event in life was worth being celebrated.

\---

The day goes by with a lot of loud happy birthdays from the boys on the team and balloons, as Bokuto’s big mouth had gone around announcing to literally _everyone_ on campus that it was your special day. And when the evening finally approaches, Bokuto decides to be true to his word and drags you back to your dorm to change. He’s instructed you to wear something nice, which, admittedly, he probably had no idea what it meant, but alas, you give in to his enthusiasm and decide on a dress.

_A dress._

Knowing that Bokuto was probably going to play some kind of dramatic Beethoven-esque music to make the reveal of you in a dress much more dramatic than what it really was, you try to quickly dilute the situation by dragging his ass out the door immediately after you were finished. A good choice it was, you think as you catch him giving you his signature pout. 

\---

  
Throughout the night as you become increasingly drunker, Bokuto becomes increasingly quiet. You, being too drunk to notice from the shots that the players of the volleyball team had made you drink, hadn’t noticed Bokuto’s sudden quiet demeanor.

And neither did Bokuto, for that matter. He wasn’t one to be deep in thought about anything, considering how much of life’s problems were better solved by being spoken to the direct source of conflict.

But what if the source of conflict was within yourself?

Bokuto felt conflicted. The way his chest had squeezed air out of his breath at the sight of you in a dress. The sight of you smiling so heart-warmingly at the volleyball team’s attempt of a sloppily baked last-minute birthday cake. What… what was this spark that he was feeling in his chest? This couldn’t be.

Perhaps it was because of the break up that was making him see you in a new light. He felt vane for realizing that you were actually an attractive human being only because you put on a dress.

But on the way back from the bar, Bokuto realizes that it wasn’t just because of the stupid dress.

  
With his hands shoved into his pockets, Bokuto watches you walk clumsily from the alcohol in your system as the streetlights flicker in the dark, giving a sporadic luminescence shining on you. He watches you stumble upon your own feet, your cheeks blushing and laugh ringing, and for a moment he feels so complete.

But this couldn’t be.

You were like… like a brother.

_A brother.  
_

Having had questioned everything that he thought he’d ever known about himself and his feelings for you was making him second-guess every single time he’d said “I love you” to his now ex-girlfriend, who he finally completely broke up with after having had realized that she was cheating.

  
All the moments of you being beside him, all the gentle touches. Despite the fact that it had practically become protocol for you to at least kick him in the groin once a day, he couldn't help but smile over your silly antics and reactions that you'd blessed him with for the past half year.

He felt enlightened. As if god had suddenly spoken to him—except, there was no god, or even better; that god was you. The essence of you shone so brightly that he wonders whether he’ll ever feel as full as he does right now.

  
The wind blows harder towards your direction, and with you being your drunk self, you decide to flap your arms to pretend to be a bird. It’s the most hilarious thing you’ve ever thought of it seemed like, as you giggled to yourself for a solid minute before you could muster up enough sanity to call for Bokuto’s attention.

   
“Hey, Kou!” you call for him with your endearing voice, your hair blown by the wind, traveling in all directions. “Look, I’m a bird!” you say while flapping your arms as if they were wings.

You looked fucking stupid, and he can't help but laugh.

  
It was so cheesy. It’s all so very cheesy. But he was treasuring every moment of this very second. Bokuto clutches at his chest and breathes in the evening with his newly-found affection for you that had just hit him like a truck.  
  
“You are,” he says, feeling a little out of breath from the sole sight of your beauty. His words get lost with the wind, but it didn’t matter because what Bokuto was really answering was his own question in his head.

_  
_It wasn’t like you were some kind of inhuman essence that could do no wrong. He’s witnessed countless versions of you that you probably weren’t very proud of. The you that hadn’t showered for four days straight because of finals. The you who’d buried yourself in ice cream because of a break-up. The you who laughs (perhaps a little too much at times) during sentimental scenes that were supposed to be tear-jerking.

But that’s the thing. He knows every single detail, knows every nook and cranny, and he might actually love every one of them.

  
\---

   
“Akaashi, I might be cheating.”

A sigh escapes Akaashi’s lips, and with a meaningful look thrown over at a very confused Bokuto, Akaashi decides to help his block-headed friend. He wasn’t one to like to involve himself in personal matters, especially when it came to other people’s personal relationships. Besides, Akaashi didn’t consider himself much of an emotional intellect enough to give advice to such matters—but even someone like him was able to see the heart eyes that Bokuto had been sending you from miles away. It was hard to miss, considering how Bokuto had always worn his heart on his sleeve.

“That’s not possible, Bokuto-san. You’ve already broken up with your girl—"

“Shhh!!” Bokuto shushes urgently with a finger over his lips and his free hand over Akaashi’s. He didn’t mean to keep his break-up a secret from you, but with his turbulent feelings coming to an abrupt end (while simultaneously coming to a sudden start), he just couldn’t find the right timing to tell you.

“Don’t speak so loudly! She’s right behind us!” And it was true. This time around, Bokuto’s aware of where you were, if you were listening, and whether you were looking at him, too.

He’d become aware of you quite a lot lately; if you were feeling well, if you were smiling at the professor’s dry jokes, whether you were having a bad day.  
  
Throwing the volleyball in his hand over to Bokuto to avoid suspicion of their top-secret conversation about the very manager that was right behind them (although thankfully, you were too busy chatting away enthusiastically with Haruki about how awesome it was for him to have been able to avoid that arm-ripping spike of Bokuto's), Akaashi reminds Bokuto of Konoha.

“Remember when Konoha-san asked about whether you would care if he asked her out?” Akaashi asks as he watches Bokuto knit his brows together.

"Yeah?"

"Well, would you?"

Some things were more obvious than others. But without Akaashi, Bokuto might not even have had noticed the most obvious of oblivion.

   
Thank god for Akaashi.

\---

The news of Bokuto being the one to break up with his high school sweetheart was shocking, to say the least. Although it came to no one’s surprise that their relationship had come to an end, you couldn’t help but feel a distant dooming fear of what might become of a newly heart-broken Bokuto.  
  
You didn’t know of the reasons for their break up, and quite frankly, you don’t know if you’re ready to hear them.

(Not that there was a reason for you to be ready, though. Not at all.)

  
“Are you _sure_ you’re okay.” You ask Bokuto in a tone that’s more out of concern than for the sake of asking. Bokuto thinks that he should at least pretend to still be a little emotional about his break-up, but when Bokuto sees the frown you make with your eyebrows, it’s all he can focus on and makes him laugh instead. 

“Yeah.” He says as he furrows them even closer together with his thumbs on your face, making you kick him.  
  
  
This was nice, he thinks he watches your unwavering, concerned face giving him a frown.

  
Even your frowning face, he realizes, was cute.

\---  
 

He’s known you for almost a full year now, and you have managed to somehow fully become the sunray in his life. All the little moments that he’s caught himself being swept away by your presence— _all of it_ —he wants to treasure them. To put them into a glass bottle and hide them from the world, only to open it during times when he felt every inch of his body missing you.

The two of you gaze upon the stars, under the same kind of sky that he first realized his feelings towards you. This was the first time that the two of you were star-gazing, and quite frankly, Bokuto couldn’t help but feel like this was all a joke.

Who the fuck was able to pull off a romantic getaway like this without it being insinuated to be something romantic?

Only him, he thinks with pride as he watches you count the stars.  
  
(Winning that match against the university’s rival team today definitely gave him the perfect excuse to celebrate.)  
   
  
“Hey, Kou?” 

It’s hard for him to focus on the words that you say when the way your slightly pink cheeks from the alcohol in your hand were making you look so incredibly irresistible right now. But nevertheless, he does, and when he hears the words that escape your lips, he suddenly forgets how to breathe.

  
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something.” You say, your voice slightly coated with embarrassment. 

_Embarrassment, huh,_ he thinks, as it was something that you seemingly never had considering the abundant number of times that he’s seen you scream upon your lungs and laugh uncontrollably. You were so unabashedly you.  
   
(And he wouldn’t trade it for the world.)

   
Bokuto holds his breath in anticipation and wonders if his little actions of affections had reached you. All the times he’s brushed your hair away from your face. All the times he’s kissed your cheek upon hearing good news. All the times—

“He likes me.” You breathe, and suddenly his whole world comes crashing down. Suddenly, you’re no longer shining, because he feels like all light has been beaten out from him.

_Was it Konoha?_

He hopes it’s not. Not after the whole ordeal that he’d made about being okay with him asking you out.

  
But the sight of you being so incredibly happy makes him swallow the lump that he has in his throat. You, who could do no wrong in his eyes.

_  
You_ — _how could you be so cruel?_

  
“Kou?” he hears you call, and how sweet your voice was every time you called for his name. He closes his eyes, and decides to swallow whatever pride he had.

 

Why did he realize the most important things when it was too late? 

_Far too late_ , he thinks, when he sees your pink cheeks and bashful smile.

   
“That’s great.” He manages to croak out instead, giving you a smile that you couldn’t quite see through. He feels so far away from himself, and it’s making him dizzy. But he watches you beam, oh so heartbreakingly, and when you kiss him on the cheek he almost wants to cry.

   
“Right?” you squeak, and he feels like he’s about to die.

\---

Three months pass since your announcement of dating Konoha. You seem happy, which should be all that matters. Konoha was a good guy, after all. The two of you suited each other.

  
But then when another month passes of your relationship, Bokuto comes home from the gym and receives a text from you.  _Are you busy?_ It says, and he scoffs. As if he’s ever too busy for you.

He calls you, and the moment he picks up the phone, he realizes immediately what’s been going on.

“Kou.”

Your voice is barely recognizable, with it being so broken from the tears that you’ve spilled. He swallows and assures you don’t have to say anything. Because he’s there to get you.

   
And the moment he opens up your apartment door, he feels you rush to his waist, planting your crying mess of a face in his shirt.

You’re crying.

_Crying._

_  
You, who never cried in front of anyone._

  
He puts a light grip to your shoulder, and he can't help but feel the incoming rage of wanting to _kill the fucking bastard._ For making you like this. For making you cry. For feeling heartache.

   
But instead of committing murder (and more than anything), he wants you to laugh. To smile again. And so, he doesn’t.

   
“Do you want me to hunt him down so that I can give him a wedgie?” he asks in your hair, which turns your sniffles into giggles. It’s the most beautiful thing, he decides, when he’s able to witness your laugh amongst the tears that were weighing you down. The sight of you being able to laugh through your tears makes his heart shatter in pieces.

He wants to wrap his arms around your waist, to tell you that everything’s going to be alright. But when he hears you utter the words “I liked him so much”, it makes him second guess his whole existence.

Second guess how he was able to stand here, watching you being utterly broken because of someone that wasn’t himself. Although to be fair, he would never let this happen to you.

  
But then again, what a coward he was, for not being able to move from the spot that he stood.

_\---_

Three years in total passes by, and the two of you finally reach your final year of college.

Heartful goodbyes, new beginnings. It’s like what winter never was for Bokuto—and yet it was also exactly what it was for him. College was a place that was _fun._ It gave him a lot of hardships, yes, but they were experiences that made him realize things that were important to him.

And he doesn’t want it to end. He doesn’t want to say goodbye, only to meet you ten years later in some random grocery store with the sight of you already married and a family of three.

But he can see it so clearly, and it makes his heart hurt just a little too much.

The graduation ceremony flies by despite being almost three hours long. You’re practically glowing, with your beautiful smile and flush-dusted cheeks as you walk on stage to receive your diploma. How was it possible for you to make almost every single moment of your smile go in slow motion? Bokuto will probably never understand what kind of magic you had under your sleeve.

Graduations was a time of celebration—and yet, as Bokuto watches you beam as you fix your lopsided graduation hat (and _still_ struggle even after fixing it), he feels an intense lump in his throat that tastes incredibly bittersweet. He knows, of course, that it’s partially because he was going to leave all the fond memories that he’s created in this school. He was going to leave school forever and start a career with everything he’s learned, and it’s all supposed to be so incredibly exciting.

And he _was_ excited. But with the bittersweet lump that’s been caught in his throat, he can’t help but feel like that he can’t truly be a happy college graduate if he didn’t address it.

   
And so he does—but in the most untimed way possible. Bokuto tends to say all the wrong things at all the right times, and this, of course, wasn’t going to be an exception.  
  


When the coach of the volleyball team offers all the graduates on the team to pay for drinks, Bokuto checks out almost immediately. With a hand to the forehead and his other one in yours, he drags you away from a very confused bunch and over to the rooftop of the gym where it all fell apart.

(Akaashi watches the two of you with a knowing smile, and urges the team to continue without the two of you.)  
  


  
“—you,” Bokuto breathes when the two of you finally stop moving. “I love you.”

How you ended up climbing up the stairs to stand on a roof that was almost five meters above the ground will probably never have a logical explanation—but that’s how it was when it came to Bokuto Koutaro for you. He did the most outrageous things, say the most stupid shit, and you were always there, ready to take in all of it.

  
“I—I…” you start to stutter, and it crushes his heart. He’s almost positive that he knows what you’re going to say. The look on your face says it all. 

“S-Sorry,” Bokuto mutters, not quite able to look you in the eye, “but I’m going to have to be selfish right now.”

 

And then he leans into you, with his lips on yours.

 

The kiss lasts only a few seconds, but an eternity goes through your head, leading you to immediately blabber away all the thoughts that were making your mind go on overdrive.

“B-but you didn’t—you don’t—” you stutter, your palms covering your heated cheeks, your eyes staring at your graduation hat that was now on the ground.

  
Your reaction makes Bokuto panic, because what was he going to say to follow _that_ up? What had he practiced over and over in his head for the past year of realizing that he loved you so much? How did he envision the moment of him confessing his feelings to you? A real-life confession, he realizes, was nothing like the ones on tv. _There could be no plan behind it all_ —only an overwhelming amount of emotions leaving sensible choices from your head, and bad timing.

_Lots,_ of bad timing.

  
“But I do.” Bokuto hears himself say in a breath too quick. “I really do.”

   
And suddenly, as if every puzzle piece that Bokuto had been trying to piece together for the past year had been magically solved at the very moment, Bokuto realizes that it was never you who was cruel. You had, just like him, tripped on timing. Not being able to say anything because of how afraid you were to lose each other. He realizes that he’s been a coward, for thinking that all the subtle advances that he had given you were enough to let you know his feelings.

You couldn’t read minds, and neither could he, and it was all very stupid. He should’ve said something a long time ago. His mind is cruising through the hall the thoughts that he wants to deliver to you, but his mouth doesn’t move. But when he realizes that _there might not be anything needed to say, after all,_ you beat him to it.

He’s sorry that he didn’t ask you whether it was okay for him to kiss you. He’s almost positive that you hate him now, but even so, he can't help but try out his chances. 

Because that’s what Bokuto Koutaro does the best—taking leaps of faith.

Without thinking, Bokuto puts his shaking palms over yours that was covering your cheeks—and with that, you crash your lips to his.

    
Whistling is heard from the background noise of birds chirping and drunk graduates laughing, but all Bokuto could hear was your loud heartbeat against his own.  
  


\---

  
  
_(Extended)_  
  
  
The flashing of the television strains your eyes in the dark living room that you and Bokuto were spending your evening in. Deep and calm breathing is heard as you watch the usually boisterous and never-ending energetic boy napping on your lap.

He’s so vulnerable like this.

  
Gently putting a hand to his cheek, you feel him move and immediately takes it away. You didn’t want to wake him. Not when he’s had such a long day from training camp.

It’s been almost two weeks since you’ve seen him, and Bokuto had originally planned on doing all there was to do on this evening that he was finally going to get to spend with you. But, of course, as nature does, sleep had overtaken him in a matter of minutes when you’d put on Netflix, and you can't blame him.

This was nice, too, though. To watch him sleep ever so calmly. You trace a finger on his face—a gentle touch that you hope to not wake him with.

You trace his eyebrows—his strong, animated eyebrows that are always full of life, giving him all kinds of facial expressions that you had grown to absolutely love.

You travel to his eyes—his golden pools of adoration and love that he gave you were painfully irresistible, and you wonder whether you’ll ever be able to live the same way when you’ve gotten to taste heaven.

You trace his nose, his cheek, his lips. When your fingers reach his chin, you watch him peek at you with one eye, his lips forming a smile under your fingertips.

   
“You should’ve woken me up.” He says, his voice husky and heavy from sleep. You laugh and pat his cheek.

“And disturb your beauty sleep? No way, you need it more than me.” You laugh, which he rolls his eyes at and instead props himself up and plants a kiss to your cheek.

“Oh really now?”

  
You meet his lips with his face between your warm touch, and Bokuto feels perfectly at home.   
  


"Yes," you whisper against his lips with a smile of your own, "really."


	2. Ushijima — Summer Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ushijima melts your heart in the scorching summer heat of August.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you guys have any requests on who I should write for next, or if you have any specific scenarios in mind that you'd like for me to write for, please do leave me a comment about it! :) Anyways, this one’s a bit shorter (uni is slamming my face in textbooks rn), but nevertheless—enjoy! 
> 
> Tags: unrequited feelings, childhood friends, light swearing.  
> Wordcount: 2026 words

 

  
The fan that you’ve stolen from your brother’s room hits your face in waves of wind. You weren’t usually one to complain—being the type to just deal with whatever was thrown at you, the weather was usually no exception. But with the agonizingly growing heat that was making it almost hard to breathe, you couldn’t help but feel an immense hatred towards climate change.

Had summer always been this hot?

  
Lazily unwrapping the ice popsicle in your hand while trying to dodge your hair from getting in your face, you dangle your head on your free hand while looking out the balcony.

Ushijima hadn’t come back from his morning run yet.

  
His unwavering loyalty for his volleyball team and pride in athleticism wasn’t always something that you had admired as greatly as you did now as an eighteen-year-old teenage girl who’d suddenly had the epiphany of noticing that her childhood friend was hot. Even though his existence had never wavered, it wasn’t until very recently that you’d realize how stupid your face looked while staring at him.

  
The relationship that the two of you shared flowed like water—like time in space, as air breathed through lungs. It was always there, and when it wasn’t, it was still unnoticeably there. Having had known him as a quiet child who followed you everywhere with cheeks stained with pink and eyes filled with fascination over the giant bugs that you would catch for him to see, it was as if his presence lingered to you like a habit; your anchor when you were lost, your relief when things went wrong. Nowadays, however, you couldn’t help but feel a bit lonely at how much less the two of you were hanging out. And how funny it was, how distance worked. One second, he’d be tailing you at the age of six, and at the other, he’s so far away that you barely recognize his voice when he calls out for you.

He’d grown so ridiculously tall. How the fuck does one achieve that amount of height? What did he _eat_? If only you knew.

  
The two of you have known each other since toddlers, and quite frankly, it was a story set up for a cliché. Despite there being hundreds upon thousands of stories that gave childhood friends the happy ending of ending up together, it wasn’t like that was the norm in the real world. Most people that were childhood friends most likely drifted apart, or viewed each other as siblings more than anything else—more than anything, a long-lasted relationship like that was probably supposed to free from expectations and unreasonably uncomfortable.    
  


But just like everything else in this world, there’s truly no norm in how relationships are supposed to be. It’s different for everyone, and you suppose that that’s exactly the case for you as well—even if meant for you to have somehow fallen into the norms of the fictional.

  
At the corner of your eye, you catch Ushijima jogging his way back home. His forehead’s slick of sweat, and the sheer sight of him coming back from a work-out makes you question how you’re still breathing at the godly sight before you.

The cold popsicle in your left hand drops to the floor as you, out of reflex, reach your hand up to greet him. (You have another in your right, because how else were you supposed to prevent yourself from getting a heat stroke?)

“Good morning.” He greets you while a pungent smell of flowers approaches you while he did. Wait, flowers? You sit up to have a better look at the boy in front of you. You’ve come to realize that your habit of touching him so casually is not very good to your heart, but your instinct comes first, and so you reach for his shirt to smell it again.

However, it doesn’t startle him, as he just curiously watches you grimace in confusion at his flower-smelling shirt.

  
“Why the hell do you smell of flowers?”  
  


“I fell into a flower bed.” He grunts, and that sets off your laugh. The type of laugh that sets you apart distinctively from the calm and rigid, gentle giant that was Ushijima. If he was spring, then you’d be winter. The type that gifted snowstorms on Christmas, whilst he’d be welcoming the first flowers of the season. The two of you were very different—the fact that you got along was probably a miracle if it wasn’t for the universe’s coincidence in making him your neighbor. Ushijima loved routine; the little planner that he kept with him at all times was for jotting down even the smallest of change. You, on the other hand, loved life as it came. Or as it goes, really—whatever may serve first. Routines weren’t meant much for you, hence your disastrous sleeping schedule. But what could you say? You were one to drive from emotion; filled with passion towards the things you cared for, and giving no second cents to things you didn’t.

The stark contrast between the two of you when caught together confuses a lot of people. But funnily enough, the one thing that the two shared commonly was that neither of you cared. Differences that the two of you bore were things that you were so used to, to have been in this friendship for so long.

  
“You’re a freaking dofus, you know that?” you laugh, and he cracks a small smile with you. It’s not known to many, but the smile he flashes you resembles the little kid that would happily accept your goodbye smooches to the check before saying goodnight after playtime during summer break. It warms your heart that even though nothing of him seems to resemble the boy that once was, that there’s a small part of him that seemed to still be reserved just for you.

  
“I know.” He replies, and takes a seat next to you.

  
Simple moments like this came around quite often. The silent moments that the two of you shared were enough words spoken for the two of you to know what was up. At this moment though, there was nothing—just the scorching heat of August, and the gentle breeze that was brushing through his olive strands and yours.  
  


“When’s your match?” you ask him, keeping the causal flow of your interaction with him as authentic as possible. It's as if you've suddenly forgotten how to react with him at times--the contradictive emotions of feeling completely at ease with him whilst simultaneously trying your best not to burst a confession at his face was not an easy feat to live with these days. Surely it was the fate of a childhood friend that's fallen in love, and you're ready to curse whoever and their mother for your hopeless case of being infatuated by the almighty Ushijima Wakatoshi.

Unsure whether it was okay to rest your head on his shoulder (an action that felt so natural for you to do before), you fiddle with your t-shirt in an attempt to mask your wandering thoughts; of the what-ifs. Of the maybes and possibilities of reciprocative feelings. You're embarrassed, of course, that you're like this. But like you always do, you do your best and keep your cool. Or try to.

(You're always trying to.)  
  
  
Were the two of you drifting apart, now that he was becoming something of a hotshot in Miyagi? You’d hate that. But what did yo **u** even _want_ from him? It wasn’t like you had enough balls (or any at all, for that matter) to confess to the guy. In fact, you'd rather for nothing to change at all, if it was to risk losing him forever. And so, _perhaps_ —you think, even though you hate the thought of it, it’d be natural, after all. To drift apart. For this comfortable relationship between the two of you to come to an end. And maybe it’ll do your heart a little good, too, as you’d get to stop with your whole façade of everything being alright the way things were. Maybe it was a sign for you to let go, to begin a new chapter, to stop holding on.

But as if having had read your mind, Ushijima pats his knee to signal you to lean on, and you feel your heart immediately doing volts in your chest. Unable to contain your smile, you snugly put your head on his lap and reach the second popsicle you had left to his cheek. Droplets of watermelon-flavored water trickle down your arm, and Ushijima reaches it with gentle fingers to wipe it away.

 _Hah_ , you think, feeling silly at how mature you were attempting to be. As if you'd be able to contain your overwhelming affection towards the musclehead that was Ushijima.

“The day after tomorrow, and thanks.” He mutters to you in reply and takes a bite of your popsicle. “Are you coming?”  
  
You find your cheeks growing heated at the sight of your indirect kiss, but says nothing about it and looks away with a laugh. “Would you kill me if I pulled a no-show?”  
  
Of course I wouldn't kill you,” he says with his eyebrows furrowed and eyes curiously watching your face, “Why? Are you busy?”

“No, just exploring a hypothetical.” You mutter, and reach your popsicle for him to finish what’s left of it. “Of course I’ll be there. How else will you control Tendou?” you laugh, which deepens a frown from the tall boy.

“You shouldn’t lead on his antics too much.” He warns you, which you roll your eyes at. It was true that Tendou tended to throw pick-up lines at you whenever you’d be present, but you’re pretty sure it’s just to tease a reaction out of you, who’s (probably) not very good at hiding your affection towards his team captain in the first place (or even the slightest).

“He’s just joking, you know.” You assure him, but his frown deepens, and with a swift of motion, he gently holds to a strand of your hair. He raises it towards the sun, as if to examine the different colors that the sun helps to reflect on it. You almost hold your breath at the scene before you.

“Maybe. But he shouldn’t say things like that if he’s not serious.”

“Serious?”

“About you.”  
  


Ushijima meets his eyes with yours, the sincere expression on his face making your heart almost jump out of your chest. _Don’t get your hopes up,_ you warn yourself, _he’s just saying that because—  
_

Because—why? He sure was making it difficult for you to start forgetting about him. At this rate, you’d probably have to live alone with five cats until you grew old and wrinkly. Because how the absolute hell were you supposed to forget about this ridiculous boy, whose eyes were twinkling in the sun and touch so gentle that it could melt a thousand hearts?  
  


“Well,” you finally manage to utter out, trying your best to sound as nonchalant as you could, “I can take a joke. Don’t worry, Ushiwaka _._ I’m not that fragile.” You laugh, but his eyes remain unwavering.

A hand to your cheek, and you realize that you’ve completely frozen. In the scorching, hot summer of thirty degrees, you’ve managed to completely freeze up by the mere presence of his hand to your face.  
  
How fucking great.  
  


“Well _,”_ he mutters, his voice low and deep, “you don’t deserve to be played with.”

You finally fucking breathe when his hand leaves your face. He was just wiping off a stain from the popsicle god damn it— _no need to start hyperventilating because of it_.

  
When he puts a hand to your hair and tells you goodbye, you somehow manage to find your lungs breathing air you’ve held off. His light touch to your head lingers like the sweet smell of newly blown-out candles. 

 _He’s so coy,_ you think as you curse the boy. _So incredibly coy._ But was he really coy, or were you just hopelessly and utterly head over heels for him?  
  
  
You sigh, not being able to contain the burst of emotions that he'd left for you to feel.

 


End file.
